SCORM

Paolo,

SCORM does not put restrictions on how the content is built - regular HTML, Flash for interactivity, QuickTime movies.  Where the restrictions / specification interjects is in the delivery and tracking of activity mechanisms.  If your client has LMS 'A' today will they have that same LMS in the future? Does the client use the same LMS in every location of delivering training? If they purchase a new LMS should they recontract to have all of their courses redeveloped?  Or if they want to restructure the course and add new content later should they redesign?  If the answer to these questions is 'No' then that's where SCORM implementation benefits. 

The SCORM specification allows for the developer of the course to provide an organizational structure of the content and it's dependencies to the LMS along with a set of rules that the LMS can use to track and manage a learner's progress through the course.  Without SCORM a developer is limited to the chosen LMS's proprietary implementations of tracking and structuring of the course. 

Organization and dependency identification is handled through the manifest file (imsmanifest.xml).  Tracking of a learner's progress is handled by using various data elements that the LMS must provide access to for storing data about the learners experience (lesson status, lesson score, etc).  The organization of the course outlines how the learner would navigate between each learning object/activity.

With all specifications there are mandatory musts and optionals - SCORM specification has this same collection of mandatories vs. optionals.  As an example the all SCORM LMSs must (mandatory) provide a way to store the learners status in an identified SCO (learning object/activity) - completed, sus.  An optional item the LMS may provide capability for is storing the minimum and maximum score achievable for the SCO.

Also, one key aspect in SCORM in the level of dependency throughout the content.  SCORM states that all SCOs (Learning Activities) should stand alone as a single learning experience.  This allows the SCOs to be organized in any fashion with other SCOs to build a complete learning experience across a general theme.  As an example using your client's line of work (being a Banc), a learning activity (SCO) on how to do a simple balance of debits and credits.  This could be used for training tellers, loan officers, even banc customers wanting to know how to balance their accounts.  The key is in keeping the content free of any specific references to specific types of accounts when you deliver that SCO.  The minute you add direct references to specific type of account then the content is only good for that focus.  So the 'trick' to building a SCORM conformant course is not how the content is delivered - static or interactive, but what content is presented and how well does it stand alone for reuse.

As I mentioned in a previous thread (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=11046) - there are alot of things that the specification covers and one should really study the various documents and look through the ADL's forum for addiitonal insight.  This spec is not a jump in with two feet and few weeks later you have a SCORM course.  You really need to read through it and know how it fits your development practices.

Hope this helps.  Take a look at examples from this forum and others to see how things work and most important - read and have the SCORM documents handy.

Not really.  The idea with SCORM is to remove learning content from any dependency on a particular LMS and that means any particular server-side technology.  In fact, SCOs should really be functional in stand-alone players that don't even use a server.  SCORM is really intended as a tool for delivering and sharing independent study materials.  Instructor grading of SCORM-based materials is not even a part of the specification.  I like to think of it as a way of creating textbook-type materials with automated interactivity, grading, and user tracking.  The textbook can be used as a part of a course where there are collaborative activities, but the textbook is not where the collaborative activities take place.  Now, technically, I don't think the specification forbids you from, say, creating a SCO that connects to some proprietary data store or communication server that would allow different users access to communicate, but this would tend to work against the idea of portability of the SCOs produced.  This resource would have to referenced by an absolute URL to work when transferred to another server, which is the main point of SCORM.  I think such a use case would be considered a brittle hack and bad form.  Now, it may be that SCORM-based materials could include materials that conformed to some other specification that allowed for some sort of portable collaboration and communication system, but I am not aware of any such and that would certainly be pushing the envelope.

Rob